The petit larceny charges against a Corning man accused of stealing a GPS tracker hidden in a campaign sign will move forward after his defense team rejected a deal from the Steuben County District Attorney's Office on Monday.

Gary McCaslin, a 70-year-old retired pastor, was offered an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, which would have seen the charges dropped so long as McCaslin was not in legal trouble for six months.

However, one of McCaslin's defense attorney's, Christina Sonsire, said because the deal required that McCaslin apologize to Congressman Tom Reed, the defense rejected the deal.

Gary McCaslin(Photo: FILE PHOTO)

"Because of that caveat, we advised Gary against the adjournment," said Sonsire, who said the requirement would amount to an admission of guilt.

The Reed campaign says they would have liked this to be the end of the matter.

"We would have liked to see an outcome like what was presented to the defendant today: an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal with an admission of guilt from Mr. McCaslin," said Nicholas Weinstein, campaign manager for Tom Reed for Congress. "We simply wanted our signs and GPS tracker back. Our intention was never to involve law enforcement and we only did so after being instructed to by Mr. McCaslin. This is in the hands of the court system now."

Tom Reed speaks during a town hall meeting held at Tioga Central High School in Tioga Center on April 1, 2017.(Photo: File Photo)

The case stems from an incident that took place five days after the federal primaries in which McCaslin claims he was cleaning up campaign signs on public land.

The Reed campaign had placed a GPS tracking device in the signs and traced the stolen signs to McCaslin, who returned the signs but not the GPS tracker. When McCaslin tried to return the tracker later to Reed's congressional office, staff directed him to the campaign office, who owned the tracker. According to campaign staff, McCaslin did come to the campaign office but left when he found the office was locked. They allege he made no other attempts to return the tracker and was later arrested.

The defense filed motions last month to have the case dismissed or, if it were to go forward, to have a special prosecutor appointed do to the political nature of the case and a perceived closeness of Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker with Congressman Reed.

Those motions were denied.

The pre-trial process is now set to begin with discovery set to take place Monday, Sept. 17 at 10 a.m.